Mr. Lincoln was so impressed by his visit to the old home that he wrote a descriptive poem, which is published in some of the Lincoln biographies. The following letter, written in 1846, explains why he wrote the poem:
"The piece of poetry of my own which I allude to I was led to write under the following circumstances: In the fall of 1844, thinking I might aid to carry the State of Indiana for Mr. Clay, I went to the neighborhood in that State in which I was raised, where my mother and my only sister are buried, and from which I had been about fifteen years. That part of the country is, within itself, as unpoetical as any spot of the earth; but still, seeing it and its objects and inhabitants aroused feelings in me which were certainly poetry, though whether my expression of these feelings is poetry is quite another question. When I got to writing, the change of subject divided the thing into four little divisions, or cantos, the first only of which I send you, and may send the others hereafter."
"My childhood's home I see again,
And sadden with the view;
And still, as memory crowds my brain,
There's pleasure in it, too.
"Q memory! thou midway world
'Twixt earth and paradise,
Where things decayed, and loved ones lost,
In dreamy shadows rise;